Striking Features of the Labor Market: Empirical Evidence

The present paper aims at explaining strike incidence, measured by the proportion of strikers observed in each sector, and strike severeness, proxied by a measure of mean strike hours lost per worker in each industry. We find that Industry concentration dissuades striking – more concentrated sectors provide higher wage growth, hence, strike disputes are rarer and terminate more quickly. A positive firm size effect was encountered more often than the industry concentration one, suggesting a link to monitoring problems. Tenure length seems to affect strike activity positively. Unionization has a positive effect on strike occurrence, as expected, but not always significant.